Entertainment
Spotify gains some speaking roles with new podcast acquisitions
Both Gimlet and Anchor will add to Spotify’s Audio-First vision.
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Spotify wants to become the home of talk radio or something to that effect. The streaming audio service just picked up two new podcasting companies, Gimlet Media and Anchor.
Our podcast users spend almost twice the time on the platform, and spend even more time listening to music
That extra time spent could increase Spotify’s advertising revenue, depending on the mix of free and premium subscribers listening to the podcast content.
With picking up Gimlet, which is one of the best content creators in the world, and Anchor, which enables creators to easily share their content, it’s clear that Spotify wants to attract creative talent to its platform. It also means that the audio streaming company is also firmly in the business of content creation, creating a feedback loop that will hopefully drive subscriber count.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek says it’s now the world’s second-biggest podcasting platform, behind Apple Music. He sees a future with 20-percent of all Spotify content being podcasts, making it the “leading platform for podcast creators around the world and the leading producer of podcasts” in his goal of becoming the world’s number one audio platform.
Spotify’s recent financial results
This announcement comes on the heels of Spotify’s quarterly financial results, showing a 36-percent increase in paid subscribers to 96 million. If the number of ad-supported “free” listeners gets added into the mix, that subscriber count over doubles to 207 million, only counting the free users that listen at least once per month. That’s in-line with the company’s own forecasts from November, beating them in some cases.
With Spotify turning its first quarterly operating profit in Q4 of 2018, expect the books to go back into the red for 2019. The company is forecasting a loss between $228 million-$410 million for the end of 2019, mainly due to spending $400 to $500 million on acquisitions this year.
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